Prius Availabity

I had asked around a few months ago, and there was a 3 - 4 month wait for a new Prius in Los Angeles. Does anyone know if there are any available now or is there still a wait?

In Texas I ordered mine in Oct 03 and they said at that time Jan 04. Checked today they still cannot give me an estimate. The manager said Toyota will step production in April. Who knows when delivery can be expected. The dealer I have dealt with has only delivered a total of 3 since the new model came on the market. I have not been able to find any info on what is realistic.

Up here in Washington the slowest I have seen is over one year and the fastest is 6 months. Just don't know if it's worth waiting that long.

The dealer here in Los Angeles said two months

It's so bad here that we haven't even been able to test drive one cause there aren't any to drive, they are all pre sold. Can't even get a 2004 anymore. If we were to order today it would be a 2005.

Has anyone here had any luck ordering one on-line? We went back to the dealer here and they instituted a new policy where they won't order a car without a non- refundable $1000 deposit. We specifically asked about that last week and they said no deposit was necessary. We were just planning to use the trade-in and not do any cash out of pocket. Back to the drawing board.

i think john found a way to get past that.. lemme find his story

"Road Trip: Locating the 2004 Prius. Call all of the dealers in your state and the surrounding states. Tell them to call back as soon as a Prius matching your preferences becomes available, agreeing that you will sign & fax a purchase agreement along with locking the deal via a credit-card charge immediately after getting notified. Lots of waiting will follow. Finally, a few phone calls, a fax, and $500 later, the deed was done. My friend got his 2004 Prius that way. So today, we jumped in my Prius and 250 miles later (round trip), he actually had his Prius. Yeah!"

-from john's stuff ( http://john1701a.com/index.html )

John has some interesting information in his site.